The Super Green School Bus

Okay, so the school bus is actually still classic yellow in colour, but it is so packed with green goodness that I’m not sure where to start. Named the Green Urban Lunch Box, the bus has vegetable gardens, an aquaponics system, solar power, a gravity feed watering system, and it is still a functioning vehicle that travels to schools and local events in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Green Urban Lunch Box started about a year ago when Shawn Peterson, a youth counselor, decided to buy an old school bus with the hopes of reconnecting city folk with their food – where it comes from, how it’s grown. Most of the visitors are children, but the bus has also reached parents, as well as reintegrated elderly and disabled individuals into the community through gardening initiatives.

Peterson started the Green Urban Lunch Box as a personal project, using his own funds until a recent crowd-funding campaign. Future plans include a rooftop garden, interior vertical garden and coffee ground mushroom garden. Peterson has shown us that a little initiative and creativity can go a long way, and the Green Urban Lunch Box has succeeded in getting many people back in touch with their food.

Amsterdam-based urban herbologist Lynn Shore has launched a new initiative to create an edible wildlife corridor through the Dutch capital. Amsterdammers are asked to participate by planting herbs in tree pits, pavement gardens, community orchards and other large or small spaces. The River of Herbs, when ready, should result in an eco-friendly alternative medicine cabinet for inhabitants, an edible corridor through the city and a renewed infrastructure for bees.

Move over Nintendo Wii, the new age of virtual reality entertainment has arrived in the form of a virtual theme park. A Utah-based startup is taking on the noble task of creating the world’s first virtual reality playground called The Void.

We have seen plenty rooftop farming initiatives over the past years here on Pop-Up City, but this one takes the ideas about farming and repurposing rooftops to a new level. Something & Son have initiated a peculiar sustainable farming project on the roof of a building in Folkestone, UK. The designers grow fish and other crops behind the facade of a characteristic fish and chips restaurant.